Week Zero

Well, I made it. I’m here. I’m in Panamá. 

This week has been insane in a good way. We’ve been staying in the Ciudad del Saber (the City of Knowledge) since we arrived. This place is a former US Military base from back when the US was controlling the Panama Canal. Now it’s a compound of NGO and International Aid offices, including the Peace Corps! We’ve been staying in these very nice air-conditioned dorms on the campus and walking a few blocks to the PC offices for training sessions:

The training sessions have been all day long, cramming in tons and tons of information and logistics. We met our APCDs (who are like our supervisors) and they’re really kind and helpful. We also had language interviews and got placed in different level Spanish classes. I’m in the top class for TE volunteers, but I still have a long way to go before I feel totally confident and fluent. 

I feel like a lot of my language growth will come from me letting myself make mistakes and not getting too nervous about trying to make every word and conjugation perfect. Apparently this is something I’ll be telling Panamanians a lot about their English. Current PCVs say it’s a struggle to get their students to “dejar la pena” (let go of their shame.) 

Language aside, we’ve had a lot of sessions on how to keep ourselves safe while we’re over here. Protecting ourselves from theft and assault and giardia and roundworms...all those nice things. We got mosquito nets and we start taking our malaria pills tomorrow, so hooray for not getting malaria!

Everyone on the PC staff here seems GREAT. I’m so glad these are the people who are watching our backs. All the current volunteers who came to Panama City to help us with training still have positive attitudes after 1, 2, and even 3 years of service, which is encouraging. They’ve been super helpful and patient answering our million questions. 

In the evenings after our sessions, we’ve had free time to get to know each other. We’ve been exploring, playing Frisbee, doing yoga, having ukulele jam sessions, etc. I already feel so welcome with these people I just met a few days ago!!! We’re from all over the US, but we’re crazy enough to be doing this now, so we’ve all got something really substantial in common already. 

Some facts about us: We’re the 76^th group of volunteers to come to Panama and we’re all either Teaching English (TE) or Community Environmental Conservation (CEC) volunteers. There are 50 of us total, and 24 of us are TE. Although we’ll be spread across the country once we get our sites, we’ll still have opportunities to visit and collaborate on projects.

 Friday night we had a field trip to Panama City’s Albrook Mall, the largest mall in all of Central America. We got bus passes and Panamanian phones and just kinda marveled at the endless maze of stores. That brings me to a really important point I wanted to talk about in my first blog post, but I ran out of time: Why are we serving in Panama? Isn’t it pretty well-off???

Well, here’s the thing. Panama’s big CITIES are well-off. Panama City is as developed as any big American city. There are a lot of very wealthy Panamanians who live in the city and in the nicer surrounding towns. But once you get so much as half an hour outside the city, the gap between the urban elite and the rural poor is VISIBLE. More than 65 percent of Panamá’s rural population and 95 percent of the indigenous population live in poverty. Panama has one of the most unequal income distributions in Latin America. So…that’s why the Peace Corps has been asked to serve in Panama.

Today we visited a current TE Volunteer’s site to get a taste of what our lives might be like after training. She lives in El Cacao, which is a small town two hours from Panama City by public transport. We got there in less time on our private bus, winding up the steep roads. When we arrived, she gave us a tour of her school:

Several other volunteers from nearby sites came as well and they all shared what they’re working on and we spent hours asking them questions about life as a TE PCV. It got my spirits up big time. Then we went to the volunteer’s host family’s house and they made all of us lunch. All of us! How nice is that?! 

Apparently this was a typical Panamanian meal: rice, plátanos maduros (cooked sweet bananas), potato salad, and chicken. We also drank chicha, which was fresh fruit juice with sugar. Sooooo good. There is zero chance I will be going hungry here. In fact, I might have to work a lot harder than I thought to LOSE weight haha!

We got a tour of the town and did a little scavenger hunt asking random people in her town about what it’s like to live there. Most everyone had brightly painted cinderblock houses with tin roofs, with latrines in separate buildings behind the house. This volunteer’s site did have electricity and running water, which is great. They did lack some infrastructure we take for granted in the US, though, like paved roads and trash pick-up. 

Despite this, the area was GORGEOUS. There were beautiful birds and orchids everywhere, green mountains in the distance, hot but with breeze and a little rain, dogs and chickens all over, adorable children running up and talking to us… This is gonna be a-okay.

Tomorrow we move to Santa Rita to live with host families and start our more TE specific training. Wish me luck!!!